Frank Mugisha (see my past posts about consulting with him here and here) presented his new PowerPoint presentation last night at Arlington Street Church. He was part of a panel succinctly titled “Crisis in Uganda: Trans-Atlantic Parallels of Homophobia and Racism: the Export of a US Conservative Agenda to Uganda.”
Frank’s mission is to save lives of persecuted GLBTI Ugandans. When your PowerPoint is trying to aid a cause like that, you have to make sure that the presentation of your message does justice to your content. Frank’s original PowerPoint was already solid, but we can all benefit from an outside perspective.
What we really noticed was the importance of adding a clear call to action in a new final slide. Frank’s presentation is extremely moving with many personal stories painfully illustrating the dangers of being out in Uganda. Every audience member wants to help in some way by the end, but didn’t know how. I can’t stress enough how important the close is — Get that ask in! Many of us in the field of do-gooding don’t feel comfortable making a hard sell. It can feel like it cheapens the difficult and sensitive work that we do with the community to turn that community into a marketing point to ask for money, but think of it as another part of advocacy. You want to advance your mission and expand its work and getting the word out there is just the first part. Turning that awareness into action whatever your goal may be (Donate! Contact your representative! Sign the petition!) doesn’t make you corporate, it makes you a champion of your cause.
